But the two-part miniseries, which begins on Mother's Day on NBC, clearly doesn't want to be.

Zoe Saldana plays Rosemary in the NBC miniseries.

Helmed by Polish-born director Agnieszka Holland (who has also directed episodes of "Treme" and "The Wire"), this "Baby" does take its title and basic plot points from Ira Levin's 1967 bestselling novel.

And, here and there, it references Roman Polanski's masterful 1968 film version that starred Mia Farrow as Rosemary, John Cassavetes as her husband, Guy, and Ruth Gordon, who won an Oscar for her role as Rosemary's eccentric neighbor Minnie Castevet.

But, beyond that, the story has been updated and rejiggered to the point that it is almost unrecognizable.

In this version, Rosemary, played by Passaic-born Zoe Saldana, isn't mousy, naive or the least bit helpless. (At one point, she takes on another of the mini-series' characters like Mrs. Peel in "The Avengers.")

The lovely Manhattan apartment she shares with her Broadway-bound actor husband Guy (Patrick J. Adams) has been moved to one of the priciest sections of Paris (where Guy is a teacher and aspiring novelist.)

And then, there are their satanic neighbors. The creaking, aged Minnie and Roman (Gordon and Sidney Blackmer in the 1968 version) have passed the torch to stunning Carole Bouquet and ruggedly handsome Jason Isaacs — a couple so wealthy and glamorous that "Minnie" simply had to be rechristened "Margaux."

As Isaacs noted, "[In the original] Roman and Minnie appear to be this harmless and sweet old couple, but Carole and I tap into all the neuroses that all of us feel when we're around people who are cooler, chicer and way better than the rest of us."

In no time flat, cool Roman and chic Margaux completely seduce and intimidate Rosemary and Guy, persuade the younger couple to move into a big lavish apartment — that just so happens to be right next door to their bigger, more lavish one — and quickly set into motion their nefarious plot to get Rosemary pregnant by the man downstairs.

Way downstairs.

The Polanski film, generally regarded as a modern horror classic and a near-masterpiece of filmmaking — among film critics, it has an almost perfect score of 98 percent on the online review site Rotten Tomatoes — certainly didn't need to be remade.

In fact, Isaacs says, when he was first approached about the project, he thought, " 'They've all lost their minds!' But then I heard they wanted to do it as a four-hour miniseries. And I heard who the director was. And, then I heard 'Paris' and that Zoe Saldana was playing Rosemary and I thought, 'Well, OK, this isn't going to be anything like the original.' "

Isaacs, a versatile actor perhaps best known for playing Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films and for his short-lived but cultish 2012 NBC series "Awake," admits to being a lifelong fan of horror films — from the high-end variety, like the original "Rosemary's Baby," to slash-ier ones like "Friday the 13th."

"Don't we all love to be scared?" he asks. "I mean, why do we ride roller coasters? It's not exactly a pleasant experience. I loved the Polanski movie. It was, in many ways, an exercise in paranoia. We can watch it and keep saying to ourselves, 'Is any of this really happening?'

"But, in [our version]," he continues, "it is really happening. Ours is creepier, more horrific, and there is more out-and-out horror in the second part."

Oh, and blood. In the Polanski film, there's hardly any to be seen.

In the miniseries, however, there is a gruesome, bloody murder, another hard-to-watch scene in a hospital, more blood in a disturbing kitchen mishap and, well, buckets more where that came from.

"Yes," Isaacs says, with a laugh. "We didn't stint on the blood."

Moving the action to the present dictated other changes as well.

In addition to altering the relationship between Rosemary and her domineering husband, the writers also had to work in (and around) the sort of modern technology that didn't exist in the 1960s.

Saldana's Rosemary doesn't dash off to a bookstore to read more about witches; she has an entire Internet's worth of information that's just a click away.

Then, there is the not-so-small matter of ultrasound, which Farrow's Rosemary didn't have to tip her off that something about her baby wasn't quite right. She also didn't have the possibility of going for an MRI when the intense pains, which haunted her through much of her character's pregnancy, became unbearable.

Isaacs says that both the miniseries and the "re-imagined" character of Roman — who, in addition to being seductive, is vile to the core — were hard to pass up.

"I take a job for the same reason most actors do," he says. "Do I like it? Do I think the audience will have fun watching it? But, it's always fun to play a villain. I still wanted him to be a nuanced character. But it's always nice to lick your lips and be delicious, confidently evil."

Helmed by Polish-born director Agnieszka Holland (who has also directed episodes of "Treme" and "The Wire"), this "Baby" does take its title and basic plot points from Ira Levin's 1967 bestselling novel.

And, here and there, it references Roman Polanski's masterful 1968 film version that starred Mia Farrow as Rosemary, John Cassavetes as her husband, Guy, and Ruth Gordon, who won an Oscar for her role as Rosemary's eccentric neighbor Minnie Castevet.

But, beyond that, the story has been updated and rejiggered to the point that it is almost unrecognizable.

In this version, Rosemary, played by Passaic-born Zoe Saldana, isn't mousy, naive or the least bit helpless. (At one point, she takes on another of the mini-series' characters like Mrs. Peel in "The Avengers.")

The lovely Manhattan apartment she shares with her Broadway-bound actor husband Guy (Patrick J. Adams) has been moved to one of the priciest sections of Paris (where Guy is a teacher and aspiring novelist.)

And then, there are their satanic neighbors. The creaking, aged Minnie and Roman (Gordon and Sidney Blackmer in the 1968 version) have passed the torch to stunning Carole Bouquet and ruggedly handsome Jason Isaacs — a couple so wealthy and glamorous that "Minnie" simply had to be rechristened "Margaux."

As Isaacs noted, "[In the original] Roman and Minnie appear to be this harmless and sweet old couple, but Carole and I tap into all the neuroses that all of us feel when we're around people who are cooler, chicer and way better than the rest of us."

In no time flat, cool Roman and chic Margaux completely seduce and intimidate Rosemary and Guy, persuade the younger couple to move into a big lavish apartment — that just so happens to be right next door to their bigger, more lavish one — and quickly set into motion their nefarious plot to get Rosemary pregnant by the man downstairs.

Way downstairs.

The Polanski film, generally regarded as a modern horror classic and a near-masterpiece of filmmaking — among film critics, it has an almost perfect score of 98 percent on the online review site Rotten Tomatoes — certainly didn't need to be remade.

In fact, Isaacs says, when he was first approached about the project, he thought, " 'They've all lost their minds!' But then I heard they wanted to do it as a four-hour miniseries. And I heard who the director was. And, then I heard 'Paris' and that Zoe Saldana was playing Rosemary and I thought, 'Well, OK, this isn't going to be anything like the original.' "

Isaacs, a versatile actor perhaps best known for playing Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films and for his short-lived but cultish 2012 NBC series "Awake," admits to being a lifelong fan of horror films — from the high-end variety, like the original "Rosemary's Baby," to slash-ier ones like "Friday the 13th."

"Don't we all love to be scared?" he asks. "I mean, why do we ride roller coasters? It's not exactly a pleasant experience. I loved the Polanski movie. It was, in many ways, an exercise in paranoia. We can watch it and keep saying to ourselves, 'Is any of this really happening?'

"But, in [our version]," he continues, "it is really happening. Ours is creepier, more horrific, and there is more out-and-out horror in the second part."

Oh, and blood. In the Polanski film, there's hardly any to be seen.

In the miniseries, however, there is a gruesome, bloody murder, another hard-to-watch scene in a hospital, more blood in a disturbing kitchen mishap and, well, buckets more where that came from.